Alastair Cook scored a century against India in his first Test match in 2006. Six years later he is now England's captain. Photograph: Aman Sharma/AP

By the way, England have a new Test captain. Amid all the hullabaloo about you know who it is easy to forget that. Alastair Cook has arrived anonymously in India before now and made a huge impact. He will be hoping to do the same again in the next couple of months. In March 2006, when he was 21 but looking even younger, he received an SOS while touring the West Indies with England's A team. It took him three days to travel from the beaches of the Caribbean to Nagpur, slap bang in the middle of India, where he joined the senior side.

Cook was under-prepared and inexperienced as well as jet-lagged when he was catapulted into his first Test match. He duly scored 60 in his first innings and an unbeaten century in his second. This was an early reminder never to underestimate England's latest captain.

In 2006 Cook remained remarkably phlegmatic at the prospect of a sudden Test debut. This time the challenge is different but just as daunting. In 2012 he is a Test veteran with 83 caps to his name, albeit at the age of 27. But he is leading a side that, for all the recent sweet talking, has become no more harmonious than the Barmy Army on a bad day. Moreover, they will be going to a country where England have not won a Test series since the winter of 1984‑85.

Such an undertaking is unlikely to daunt Cook but it is not a straightforward one. There is the KP issue. The cameras and the binoculars in the press box will zoom in on the England balcony when Pietersen registers his first 50 of the tour. Who is clapping? How hard are they clapping? Are they clapping with real conviction?

Cook was bound to be a catalyst in Pietersen's "reintegration", a process that has not been as long‑winded as we were led to believe. He has stated his case plainly. "As a captain I wanted our best players in the team because that is how we know we can get the best results." It helps that Cook is not Strauss. It is easier to try to wipe the slate clean.

There is a loose parallel here with the 1984‑85 tour. Then England had a new(ish) captain in David Gower and a "difficult", gifted cricketer in Phil Edmonds. The Middlesex left-arm spinner was probably not as difficult as Pietersen (I'm sure he would agree with that) but not quite as gifted (here we may part company). Edmonds had been jettisoned from the England team by the previous captain, Bob Willis, who did not like him in his dressing room (decades on he has questioned the wisdom of that thinking).

After a 15-month absence from the Test team, Edmonds was recalled by Gower for the trip to India. Gower had no scars in his relationship with Edmonds and, acknowledging those special skills, he was prepared to give him another chance. Edmonds was grateful for that – tacitly – and, while retaining the odd idiosyncrasy, tried his socks off for Gower. It was a mutually beneficial process. The optimists hope for something similar this time around.

There are other more orthodox concerns for Cook. Who should accompany him to the crease at the start of the innings? It could be an elevated Jonathan Trott. It is more likely that the England camp would prefer Joe Root or Nick Compton to be introduced so that their middle order can remain relatively undisturbed. The early games – there are three of them – will have unusual spice as Root and Compton go head to head.

Nor do England depart with any certainty over what constitutes their best bowling attack. Monty Panesar made his debut in India alongside Cook at Nagpur in 2006, Graeme Swann's first appearance was in Chennai under Pietersen in December 2008. The blunt statistic is that in the seven Tests Swann and Panesar have played together, England have never been victorious. Cook and his advisers must decide how significant that statistic is. On the anticipated turning tracks of India, the choice will boil down to whether a five-man attack with Samit Patel as Swann's partner is better value than a four-man attack with Panesar alongside the off-spinner.